Extracts from Adam's Diary by Mark Twain

MONDAY.—This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the
way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don't like
this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other
animals.... Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain....
WE? Where did I get that word—the new creature uses it.

TUESDAY.—Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing
on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls—why,
I am sure I do not know. Says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls. That is not a
reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name
anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along,
before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered—it
LOOKS like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says the moment one
looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." It will have
to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does
no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.

WEDNESDAY.—Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have
it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it
out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with
the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals
make when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always
talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but
I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and any
new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these
dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new
sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear,
first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to sounds that
are more or less distant from me.

FRIDAY. The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I
had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty—GARDEN
OF EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any longer
publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and
therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it LOOKS like a park, and
does not look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting
me, it has been new-named NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently
high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a sign up:

KEEP OFF THE GRASS

My life is not as happy as it was.

SATURDAY.—The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run
short, most likely. "We" again—that is ITS word; mine, too, now,
from hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in
the fog myself. This new creature does. It goes out in all weathers, and
stumps right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so pleasant
and quiet here.

SUNDAY.—Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more
trying. It was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I
had already six of them per week before. This morning found the new
creature trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.

MONDAY.—The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I
have no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I want it to come. I
said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its
respect; and indeed it is a large, good word and will bear repetition. It
says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is
all one to me; what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by
herself and not talk.

TUESDAY.—She has littered the whole estate with execrable names and
offensive signs:

This way to the Whirlpool

This way to Goat Island

Cave of the Winds this way

She says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there was any custom
for it. Summer resort—another invention of hers—just words,
without any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is best not to ask
her, she has such a rage for explaining.

FRIDAY.—She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls.
What harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why; I have
always done it—always liked the plunge, and coolness. I supposed it
was what the Falls were for. They have no other use that I can see, and
they must have been made for something. She says they were only made for
scenery—like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.

I went over the Falls in a barrel—not satisfactory to her. Went over
in a tub—still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool and the Rapids
in a fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious complaints about
my extravagance. I am too much hampered here. What I need is a change of
scene.

SATURDAY.—I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two days, and
built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as
well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has
tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and
shedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged to
return with her, but will presently emigrate again when occasion offers.
She engages herself in many foolish things; among others; to study out why
the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as
she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were
intended to eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that would be
to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as I understand, is
called "death"; and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the
Park. Which is a pity, on some accounts.

SUNDAY.—Pulled through.

MONDAY.—I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to
rest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good idea. ... She has
been climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. She said nobody was
looking. Seems to consider that a sufficient justification for chancing
any dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justification moved her
admiration—and envy, too, I thought. It is a good word.

TUESDAY.—She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body.
This is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed any
rib.... She is in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not
agree with it; is afraid she can't raise it; thinks it was intended to
live on decayed flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can with
what is provided. We cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the
buzzard.

SATURDAY.—She fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking at
herself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly strangled, and said
it was most uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures which
live in there, which she calls fish, for she continues to fasten names on
to things that don't need them and don't come when they are called by
them, which is a matter of no consequence to her, she is such a numbskull,
anyway; so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last night and
put them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed them now and then all
day and I don't see that they are any happier there then they were before,
only quieter. When night comes I shall throw them outdoors. I will not
sleep with them again, for I find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among
when a person hasn't anything on.

SUNDAY.—Pulled through.

TUESDAY.—She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are
glad, for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I
am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.

FRIDAY.—She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree,
and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education. I told
her there would be another result, too—it would introduce death into
the world. That was a mistake—it had been better to keep the remark
to myself; it only gave her an idea—she could save the sick buzzard,
and furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her
to keep away from the tree. She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will
emigrate.

WEDNESDAY.—I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night, and
rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear of the
Park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but
it was not to be. About an hour after sun-up, as I was riding through a
flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or
playing with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they
broke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was
a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I knew
what it meant—Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the
world. ... The tigers ate my house, paying no attention when I ordered
them to desist, and they would have eaten me if I had stayed—which I
didn't, but went away in much haste.... I found this place, outside the
Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few days, but she has found me out.
Found me out, and has named the place Tonawanda—says it LOOKS like
that. In fact I was not sorry she came, for there are but meager pickings
here, and she brought some of those apples. I was obliged to eat them, I
was so hungry. It was against my principles, but I find that principles
have no real force except when one is well fed.... She came curtained in
boughs and bunches of leaves, and when I asked her what she meant by such
nonsense, and snatched them away and threw them down, she tittered and
blushed. I had never seen a person titter and blush before, and to me it
seemed unbecoming and idiotic. She said I would soon know how it was
myself. This was correct. Hungry as I was, I laid down the apple
half-eaten—certainly the best one I ever saw, considering the
lateness of the season—and arrayed myself in the discarded boughs
and branches, and then spoke to her with some severity and ordered her to
go and get some more and not make a spectacle or herself. She did it, and
after this we crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and
collected some skins, and I made her patch together a couple of suits
proper for public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is true, but
stylish, and that is the main point about clothes.... I find she is a good
deal of a companion. I see I should be lonesome and depressed without her,
now that I have lost my property. Another thing, she says it is ordered
that we work for our living hereafter. She will be useful. I will
superintend.

TEN DAYS LATER.—She accuses ME of being the cause of our disaster!
She says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured her
that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I said I was
innocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the Serpent
informed her that "chestnut" was a figurative term meaning an aged and
moldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes to pass the
weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort, though I had
honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She asked me if I
had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was obliged to admit
that I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It was this. I was
thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, "How wonderful it is to
see that vast body of water tumble down there!" Then in an instant a
bright thought flashed into my head, and I let it fly, saying, "It would
be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble UP there!"—and I was just
about to kill myself with laughing at it when all nature broke loose in
war and death and I had to flee for my life. "There," she said, with
triumph, "that is just it; the Serpent mentioned that very jest, and
called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval with the creation."
Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I were not witty; oh, that I had
never had that radiant thought!

NEXT YEAR.—We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up
country trapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a
couple of miles from our dug-out—or it might have been four, she
isn't certain which. It resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation.
That is what she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. The
difference in size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new
kind of animal—a fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to
see, it sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before there was
opportunity for the experiment to determine the matter. I still think it
is a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not let me
have it to try. I do not understand this. The coming of the creature seems
to have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable about
experiments. She thinks more of it than she does of any of the other
animals, but is not able to explain why. Her mind is disordered—everything
shows it. Sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when
it complains and wants to get to the water. At such times the water comes
out of the places in her face that she looks out of, and she pats the fish
on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it, and betrays
sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways. I have never seen her do like
this with any other fish, and it troubles me greatly. She used to carry
the young tigers around so, and play with them, before we lost our
property, but it was only play; she never took on about them like this
when their dinner disagreed with them.

SUNDAY.—She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired out,
and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to
amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have
not seen a fish before that could laugh. This makes me doubt.... I have
come to like Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so.
There ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now
they come handy.

WEDNESDAY.—It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It
makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says "goo-goo" when
it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird, for it
doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for
it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I cannot get a
chance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely lies around, and
mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen any other animal do
that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but she only admired the
word without understanding it. In my judgment it is either an enigma or
some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart and see what its
arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so.

THREE MONTHS LATER.—The perplexity augments instead of diminishing.
I sleep but little. It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on its
four legs now. Yet it differs from the other four legged animals, in that
its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the main part
of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this is not
attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of traveling shows
that it is not of our breed. The short front legs and long hind ones
indicate that it is a of the kangaroo family, but it is a marked variation
of that species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never
does. Still it is a curious and interesting variety, and has not been
catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt justified in securing
the credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it, and hence have
called it KANGAROORUM ADAMIENSIS.... It must have been a young one when it
came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It must be five times as big,
now, as it was then, and when discontented it is able to make from
twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it made at first. Coercion does
not modify this, but has the contrary effect. For this reason I
discontinued the system. She reconciles it by persuasion, and by giving it
things which she had previously told me she wouldn't give it. As already
observed, I was not at home when it first came, and she told me she found
it in the woods. It seems odd that it should be the only one, yet it must
be so, for I have worn myself out these many weeks trying to find another
one to add to my collection, and for this to play with; for surely then it
would be quieter and we could tame it more easily. But I find none, nor
any vestige of any; and strangest of all, no tracks. It has to live on the
ground, it cannot help itself; therefore, how does it get about without
leaving a track? I have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch
all small animals except that one; animals that merely go into the trap
out of curiosity, I think, to see what the milk is there for. They never
drink it.

THREE MONTHS LATER.—The Kangaroo still continues to grow, which is
very strange and perplexing. I never knew one to be so long getting its
growth. It has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly
like our hair except that it is much finer and softer, and instead of
being black is red. I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and
harassing developments of this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I could
catch another one—but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and the
only sample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought it
in, thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that for
company than have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a nearness to
or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among strangers who do
not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel that it is
among friends; but it was a mistake—it went into such fits at the
sight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen one before. I
pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing I can do to make
it happy. If I could tame it—but that is out of the question; the
more I try the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to the heart to see
it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. I wanted to let it go, but
she wouldn't hear of it. That seemed cruel and not like her; and yet she
may be right. It might be lonelier than ever; for since I cannot find
another one, how could IT?

FIVE MONTHS LATER.—It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself
by holding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and
then falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has no
tail—as yet—and no fur, except upon its head. It still keeps
on growing—that is a curious circumstance, for bears get their
growth earlier than this. Bears are dangerous—since our catastrophe—and
I shall not be satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much
longer without a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she
would let this one go, but it did no good—she is determined to run
us into all sorts of foolish risks, I think. She was not like this before
she lost her mind.

A FORTNIGHT LATER.—I examined its mouth. There is no danger yet: it
has only one tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it
ever did before—and mainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall
go over, mornings, to breakfast, and see if it has more teeth. If it gets
a mouthful of teeth it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a
bear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous.

FOUR MONTHS LATER.—I have been off hunting and fishing a month, up
in the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it is
because there are not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned
to paddle around all by itself on its hind legs, and says "poppa" and
"momma." It is certainly a new species. This resemblance to words may be
purely accidental, of course, and may have no purpose or meaning; but even
in that case it is still extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear
can do. This imitation of speech, taken together with general absence of
fur and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new
kind of bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly interesting.
Meantime I will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the north
and make an exhaustive search. There must certainly be another one
somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it has company of its
own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this one first.

THREE MONTHS LATER.—It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had
no success. In the mean time, without stirring from the home estate, she
has caught another one! I never saw such luck. I might have hunted these
woods a hundred years, I never would have run across that thing.

NEXT DAY.—I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it
is perfectly plain that they are of the same breed. I was going to stuff
one of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some
reason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a
mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get
away. The old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like a
parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much,
and having the imitative faculty in a high developed degree. I shall be
astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot; and yet I ought not
to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it could think
of since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is as ugly as
the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat complexion and
the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls it Abel.

TEN YEARS LATER.—They are BOYS; we found it out long ago. It was
their coming in that small immature shape that puzzled us; we were not
used to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain had
stayed a bear it would have improved him. After all these years, I see
that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live
outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought
she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall
silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that brought us
near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the
sweetness of her spirit!